The numbers will present themselves. Tons of blog posts and columns have been dedicated to the idea that Apple Macs are not only better but actually cheaper than your regular computers from Dell, HP, Acer and Lenovo. Let’s cut to the chase and show you hard facts and real numbers.

Just go to the Apple website and order yourself a fully loaded Mac or MacBook. Here are the screen shots:

Upgrade your MacBook’s RAM from 1GB to 4GB: $850

The iMac’s RAM from 2GB to 4GB: $700

The MacPro RAM from 1GB to 16GB: $4,499 (it’s $699 from 1GB to 4GB)

Now, let’s go to the HP website and get our PC a memory upgrade.

The HP D4996T Ultimate Desktop series from 2GB to 4GB: $170

Note, all RAM upgrades are DDR2-667MHz dual channel SDRAM (PC5300). As a comparison, a 4GB (2GBx2) RAM purchase directly from the manufacturer’s website (Kingston, Corsair, Crucial) will only cost you $150.

So why is Apple charging almost $350 per GB or RAM when SRP is just about $50? That’s a 700% mark-up. maybe it’s hard to personally insert an extra RAM module there so Apple is actually charging for professional installation fee to add more memory to your new Mac.